Class Caste Gender

Annotation. This volume of essays looks into the dynamic interconnection of class, caste and gender in the Indian political process. The focus is on interconnection (that is a relationship involving more than one category), while at the same time trying to understand each category by itself. The complex issues of caste, gender and class have been studied through a collection of essays that look into the people's struggle for social equality. Social oppression has been analyzed in the context of protests against such exploitation. Anti-caste movements and women's movements have been studied in much detail. The volume is divided into five sections and well-known specialists have contributed pertinent essays. This important book will contribute immensely in the understanding of the contemporary Indian political process.

An analysis of the status of women depends on an understanding of gender relations in a specific context. Examining gender relations as power relations makes clear that these are sustained by the institutions within which gender relations occur. For women, absence of power results in the lack of access to and control over resources, a coercive gender division of labour, devaluation of their work, and a lack of control over their own labour, mobility as well as sexuality and fertility. Gender equality thus demands substantive transformation, a set of policies and conditions created by the state that facilitate the reallocation of resources, thereby increasing women s control over resources that confer power at individual, household, and societal levels.

This volume investigates how four socially constructed identities (race, gender, class and caste) can be rethought as matrices designed to accumulate various kinds of socio-economic values and to translate and transfer these values from one group to another. Essays in the anthology also attempt to compare the mechanisms deployed by various groups to consolidate identificatory investments. Drawn mainly for the fields of literary and cultural studies, the essays are grouped in four categories. Essays collected under ‘Theoretical Approaches’ scrutinize the relative value of various approaches; those collected under ‘Considerations of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation’ examine the interaction between these three categories in formation of identities; those grouped under ‘Comparative Analysis of African-American and Dalit Writing’ provide comparative analyses of the literary productions of these two oppressed groups; and, finally, those under ‘The Persistence of Racialized Perceptions’ focus on the role of ideologically inflected perception of European colonizers and the persistence of such perception in the categorization and treatment of colonial migrants to the metropolis.

“Women always face violence from men. Equality is only preached, but not put into practice. Dalit women face more violence every day, and they will continue to do so until society changes and accepts them as equals.” — Bharati from Andra Pradesh The right to equality regardless of gender and caste is a fundamental right in India. However, the Indian government has acknowledged that institutional forces arraigned against this right are powerful and shape people’s mindsets to accept pervasive gender and caste inequality. This is no more apparent than when one visits Dalit women living in their caste-segregated localities. Vulnerably positioned at the bottom of India’s gender, caste and class hierarchies, Dalit women experience the outcome of severely imbalanced social, economic and political power equations in terms of endemic caste-class-gender discrimination and violence. This study presents an analytical overview of the complexities of systemic violence that Dalit women face through an analysis of 500 Dalit women’s narratives across four states. Excerpts of these narratives are utilised to illustrate the wider trends and patterns of different manifestations of violence against Dalit women. Published by Zubaan.

Joanna Liddle and Rama Joshi explore the connection in India between gender and caste, and gender and class. They ask whether the subordination of women has diminished as India moves from a caste to a class structure, and what effect colonization had on the status of women in India. Focusing on educated, professional women, the authors look at the particular experiences of 120 women they interviewed, and also interpret the larger patterns of social relations that emerge from the interviews. These sensitive stories are told with an eloquence that is often moving and inspiring. For thousands of years Indian women have had a cultural tradition of resisting male domination. At the same time, the control of female sexuality has always been central to social hierarchies in India. Women are constrained in both class and caste hierarchies, to help distinguish the men at the top of the hierarchy from men at the bottom, where women are less constrained. In class society the seclusion of women allowed men to have sexual control over women and to retain the property that was transferred in marriage. In contemporary India, professional women have had success entering the professions as the social groups to which they belong move increasingly to class rather than caste structures. But men continue to control the type of education they receive and the type of employment open to them, and to participate in the sexual harassment of women in the workplace. The concept that women are inferior to men--a concept that is not part of the Indian cultural heritage--is growing. In a sense, working professional women strengthen male control. The class structure is no more egalitarian than the caste structure, as oppression simply takes other forms.

With reference to 20th century Indian English literature with special reference to gender identity.

Explores The Construction Of New Classes. Caste, Religion And Gender Identities In Colonial Punjab. Examines How The Notion Of Being High Caste-Contributed To The Formation Of A Middle Class Among The Hindus And The Sikhs. 5 Chapters-Conclusion, Bibliography, Index.